


The Ice Behind the Sky

by Piedpiper6666



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Coming to Terms with Death, M/M, POV Second Person, Sort of hurt/comfort, Suicide (mentioned in notes), a sort-of heaven, and then victor dies, comment if you think i should tag anything else, he believes in an afterlife but he doesnt know what kind of afterlife there is, i cried while writing this too its okay, oh also yuuri is an athiest, thats it thats the whole story, victor is sort of christian?, which is only really mentioned when he talks about not believing in an afterlife, yuuri slowly accepting the fact that victor is dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piedpiper6666/pseuds/Piedpiper6666
Summary: "I wonder if there's an ice skating rink in heaven," Victor muses, "and how many people use it. You'd walk in the doors, and the sign would say: The Ice Behind the Sky."You don't tell him that you don't believe in heaven. You place a hand on his shoulder and think, if Victor was to go anywhere, it would be there. He's always belonged on the ice behind the sky. (Feed this love as long as you can, because it feels like only days before it's gone.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> (For clarity- in the first section of the story victor and yuuri in their 50s and in all sections following they are in their 80s)
> 
> Disclaimer: I know nothing about being married or being old, which are the two main focuses of this story. I apologize if I don't do either justice but I'm 15 and I'm tRYING. (Also pretend that nothing about society or technology changes in the period of time that they grow old because that's too much worldbuilding for a sad angsty feels trip)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! This is my first story in this fandom.
> 
> Please enjoy!

* * *

Breakfast was _blini_ , one of Victor's introductions to your life. Warm and handmade and light and fluffy, they sat on the plate like a representation of everything this new life was made of-- warmth, light, handmade, painstakingly and carefully and tirelessly and lovingly. You give all of yourself to a marriage, with the deep satisfaction of knowing that your spouse will give all of themselves to you too. Victor's held your heart since they day you met him-- for real, at the onsen-- but it was only after idolization turned to love that you knew for sure that he would keep it safe.

"We should talk about a will, Yuuri." Your husband ( _husband_ , you'll never get tired of that) remarked, a serious topic disguised by a warm smile and blithe tone.

"A will?" The thought hadn't occurred to you; you suppose it should have, you were both well into your 50s at this point and life doesn't last forever, but--

"I'd like you to get everything when I die." Victor said, conviction and love in his tone and the way his eyes shone with sincerity.

"I already have everything," you responded, "and besides, it's not like you're, I mean, you know..." _going to die_ , you thought, although a little voice in the back of your head reminded you that _yes, he will, someday, he will be gone and you'll be alone again._

"I won't be leaving you anytime soon," Victor assured you, a warm smile dancing across his lips before he leaned in and gave you a peck on the cheek. He was as beautiful as ever, and his reassuring words helped to comfort you.

The rest of breakfast was filled with smiles and kisses and warmth and plates going "in the sink there they belong, Yuuri,"-- but breakfast was where it began.

Breakfast was where you realized that, someday, Victor was going to die.

* * *

Skating was your second love (Victor your first), which was something you and he shared in common. Nothing held that ethereal beauty quite like a half-lit rink, visited in secret in the dark of night. Competitions and programs and jumps and step sequences meant nothing compared to the chill down your spine and the music drawing its way down to the pit of your gut until it was inside you. The way the music fills you, shakes you to your bones and emerges through your muscles was how Victor fell in love with you, how you fell back in love with yourself and how you picked your feet up and put your skates on and  _lived._

Skating was your second love, and losing your love was one of the hardest things you ever had to do.

You weren't too old when the quads became impossible, protesting muscles refusing to allow such a thing. You got by on triples and doubles until even jumping at all took the breath from your lungs. As time went on and step sequences felt like running a marathon and the music in your gut beat a tune that felt like a race, pushing you to the edge where you couldn't help but topple over, you settled for skating circles around the edge of the rink, refusing to give up on the thing that brought your husband to you.

It hurt. You watched it hurt Victor too, watched his eyes watching you struggle through steps he had lost the ability to do years ago. When they say everything hurts when you get old, you don't really understand what that means until you bruise yourself bumping your arm on a doorknob. You watched as Victor grew further and further away , you not far behind, until neither of you had the balance to stand in a pair of skates, let alone perform the way you used to.

When you watch competitions on TV, it reminds you that you're old. Really old. Older than 80, a wise old man with his wise old husband watching these young whippersnappers, faces flush and muscles strong and tight, glide through the air like the breeze you used to be. You can't bring yourself to stop watching, but it hurts. You almost wish you could tell them: _feed this love as long as you can, because it feels like only days before it's gone._

* * *

The walls of your home are covered in photographs-- pictures of you and Victor before you realized that the tension you felt was love, when you were just Coach and Student. Pictures of you after you won the Grand Prix Final ( _the day Victor kissed you for the first time and you realized "ah, this is love."_ ) Pictures of you and Victor at your wedding, Victor's smile threatening to split his face in half and yours not far behind. There's an ice sculpture there in the shape of a lithe body gliding across the ice-- when you asked the sculptor who it was of, she told you it was love.

The walls of your home are covered in medals, Victor's countless Grand Prix victories hanging proudly next to your lone gold, accentuating rather than overshadowing. Your Nationals medals and trophies hang on pegs and sit on shelves-- on of them sits on your desk and holds your pens. But your most prized possession is your medal from the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship; that was when you realized that winning was only terrifying until you remembered how  _fun_ skating is, how fun it was to move across the ice. You remembered why you even started skating-- you fell back in love. That moment is the most important moment of your life (aside from your wedding, of course)

The walls of your home are filled with landscapes, beautiful paintings of both your hometown and Victor's. The walls of your home are filled with Japan and Russia combining themselves until it was indistinguishable where one began and one ended. The walls of your home are Victor and Yuuri and Yuuri-Victor and Victuuri, until the walls of your home became a constant reminder of love.

The walls of your home never cease to make you sad, now.

Victor is dying. The walls of your home don't have any room to let him leave.

 

* * *

Victor is dying. There's no disease, no injury, but you feel it in the way he drifts further and further out of reach, in the slow dimming of his eyes. It breaks your heart every day-- life is  _far_ shorter than anyone made it out to be, and you haven't had enough fucking  _time._

You're not ready for him to die. You wake up every morning in a panic in case something had happened to him in his sleep and--

"What is it, Yuuri?" he mumbles, half-asleep. He knows the answer, but never stops smiling, never shows whether he's afraid of dying or whether he's ready, just looks you in the eyes with the devotion you'll never be used to.

"Nothing, darling." you murmur. "Go back to sleep."

He does, and you pray to the God that you don't believe in that it won't be for the last time.

You feel like one of the main things about being older than 80 is that you can now truly say that your every action fully embodies the word "putter." You putter out of bed, putter across the kitchen, putter into the living room. You're getting old too, but Victor's always been older. Every single day is one day closer to death, and you feel that finality hanging over you like a storm cloud. It's an atmospheric pressure, and it's making you grumpy and unhappy and paranoid. Victor takes it in stride, loves you down to his bones, and he really must be an angel to be comforting you about his own death.

But you're not ready to let him leave, and you don't think you ever will be.

* * *

"The Grand Prix Finals are on, Uncle Yuuri," Yuuko's daughter, one of the triplets has been helping around the house since you and Victor have found yourselves to tired and sore to accomplish what you used to. Not your real niece, of course, but she loves you like one. You're blessed to have her.

"Do you want to watch?"

"Of course we do!" Victor chimes in from his spot on his chair. "These little upstarts had better have some  _real_ professionals criticizing their work."

"Can you see the TV alright, Victor?"

"I haven't been able to see clearly in years," he jokes, "but I don't need to. I can tell by the sound their skates make on the ice whether they deserve to win."

He can, too. When the first skater starts to perform, he closes his eyes and  _listens,_ feels the routine, sees it inside his mind. A look of such concentration and euphoria always graces his features during the Grand Prix Finals; skating is his second love, too, one he's never been able to give up either. You can feel his longing more palpably this year, though. You think he's even crying.

You don't say a word. Your cheeks are stained with what once was too. This isn't a time to be cluttering his ears with what he already knows.  _I'll be there forever,_ you think, _or for as long as I can._ You don't have to say it for him to hear.

* * *

"Let's go to the rink, Yuuri."

"The rink?" you question. Victor, in his wheelchair, must know that there's no way he could ever skate. It's not like you have the balance to skate either, you haven't been able to in years.

"I want to see it." he says, a wistful look crossing his face. "One last time."

"It won't be the last time--" you rush to add, but his eyes stop you.  _Yes, it will,_ they say.  _Yes, I know_ , they continue.  _Yes, I'm ready,_ they finish, and, honestly, how could he expect you  _n_ ot to cry?

"Alright," you somehow manage to choke out through your tears. "Let's go to the rink."

Yuuko's daughter drives you; normally she would have refused on accounts of protecting your health and straining your bodies, but she saw the look in your eyes and knew.

Pushing Victor through the doors feels like coming home, and it feels like the last real thing you'll ever do. It feels like cradling a well-read book in your hands after finishing it yet again. It feels like the end of a performance, which you haven't felt in so long. It feels terrible, and it feels so necessary you're drowning in it.

Up the wheelchair ramp and down to the practice rink. A couple of skaters are warming up, while a third is being yelled at by his coach. It seems he fell out of a jump-- he's focusing too hard instead of letting himself feel the movement-- now that doesn't sound familiar at all. 

Victor watches the scene with closed eyes, seeing all he needs to with his skater's ears. His face radiates beauty and warmth-- there's nothing negative hiding in the lines of his face, and you're grateful. You should have come here sooner if you'd known it would help him-- you swear you would have--

"Isn't it beautiful?" Victor asks, like a child.

"The skater?" You respond, certain that he's not talking about the young man (practically a child and yet so certain in his maturity) practicing his jumps.

"Mmm," he hums in partial affirmation, "but not just him. The ice," he says, gesturing to the rink with his voice. "The sounds. The chill down your spine."

You breathe in and you feel it, that chill you've been missing for so long. It's just like Victor to give you back your second love while taking away your first, just like him to be so utterly devoted to you. God, you love him so much.

"I wonder if there's a ice skating rink in heaven," he muses, "and how many people use it. You'd walk in the doors, and the sign would say: _The Ice Behind the Sky._ "

You don't tell him that you don't believe in heaven. You place a hand on his shoulder and think,  _if Victor was to go anywhere, it would be there. He's always belonged on the ice behind the sky._

You and Victor watch the boy raise his hands to the sky, and you think:  _I'll meet you there soon._

* * *

A week later, Victor dies. You wake up in the morning and Victor is smiling, and he is dead. His eyes are closed, and he is cold, and he is dead.

You cry for an hour before Yuuko's daughter finds you.

She calls her mother and her father and her sisters, and she calls Yuri Plisetsky and Minami and Phichit. She calls everyone you ever knew and more, everyone who knew Victor as a great skater and a greater person. She calls them all and brings them together and you realize that you're not alone, of course you're not, Victor would never leave you alone. He left you countless friends and countless shoulders to cry on-- he left you everything he ever had, and he left you with his love. He still has your heart in his hands, and you still trust him to keep it safe. He's still your first love, and skating still your second-- you're looking forward to see next year's Grand Prix contenders.

He's still there, in the breakfast you eat and the walls of your home and the skating rink and the chill down your spine. You've got a couple more skaters to watch and breakfasts to eat and friends to spend time with and then you're coming, Victor, you're coming too. You need your coach to walk you through a quadruple Salchow again-- you want to land one within two months, no, one.

You've got a little more life to live, and then you're skating away. Joining your love on the ice behind the sky.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> blini: a Russian pancake-crepe-thing. my friend Sonja told me about them so if thats not an accurate description i apologize
> 
> sorry for your tears. i cried too- i just felt like this needed to be written.
> 
> EDIT: well i guess my story isnt accurate anymore bc their first kiss sure wasnt at the grand prix FINALS am i right ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> EDIT 2: ALSO YUURI DIDNT ACTUALLY WIN?? so thats not accurate either but i dont c a r e
> 
> EDIT 3: If you are reading this and have lost someone recently, then you know as well as I do that there are no words. In this story, Yuuri struggles with the fact that Victor believes in an afterlife while he does not (and only sorta does at the end.) When I wrote this story, my grandmother was dying. A few days later she was dead. A year later, my mother passed away in a medical accident. The message I wanted to convey with this story was not that faith in an afterlife or a religion is a necessary step in grief, but that clinging to the hope and love of who you have left is absolutely essential and incredibly healing. You are not alone.


End file.
